Bay firms depend on foreign workers (Crab Pickers)

The Washington Times ^ | 6-1-05 | Jeffrey Sparshott

[ctlpdad]

The crew accept the chance that they could catch nothing and get no money. They usually end up getting the qualified crew cheapest that way.

The processors know they will have a certain amount of work to do based on the set quota and set price for the ccrab. They hire unskilled mexicans cheap.

The fishermen & processors are 2 completely separte business entities.

[sgtbono2002]

Here many fisherman work on shares. with the owner of the boat getting two shares while the rest get one.

[doc30]

I've been think and thinking about this. More and more Americans want a good standard of living, so they avoid work like this like the plague. However, if businesses were to stop using illegals, then a heck of a lot of jobs would go unfilled quickly. If there are 10 million illegals here and lets say the range of 1 to 2 in 3 is working as an assumption, then about 2% to 4% of the U.S. workforce is working illegally. Just as a rough guess. When 5% unemployment is considered full employment, then there really is a need for more workers than the U.S. has in supply. If the illegals were all shipped out tomorrow, that would mean 2-4% of the jobs out there would be available. These are all, right now, low wage jobs. By supply and demand, wages would have to rise for these positions to be filled. That would put an upward pressure on costs and the price for these items would increase. The net result would be that, on an economically comparable scale, nothing would change. The higher wages paid for Americans to work the jobs illegals are doing now would still result in the same relative standard of living. Americans would have to get used to working and living in conditions that illegals experience today. Provided social services aren't pegged to inflation pressures resulting from dumping the illegals, then living on the government dole would be worse than living in the low standards illegals live in today. In other words, it might be enough to get Americans to do the cr@p jobs they won't do today because welfare would be worse. All based on supply and demand.

[Who dat?]

Well it makes a good story, but seeing how the last two “employers” I can recall that were caught having hired illegals were the San Leandro Unified School District and the U.S. Navy, I expect your little plan isn’t going anywhere.

I’ll admit that the thought of seeing their employers – up to and *including* Gutless Wonder serving his year would suit me fine.

[oceanview]

I've got news for you, more and more americans are avoiding jobs like engineering for the same reason. know anyone who wants to be a tradesman - carpenter, painter, roofer. why not? its not just unskilled labor anymore.

[ClaireSolt]

Some of this is geography. Chesapeake Md is sparsely populated but it is within driving distance of DC and Baltimore. Tell me there are no unemployed workers there.

[Blood of Tyrants]

"We have to have the Mexican workers just to sustain our business. American workers simply are not available,"

You want Americans, then you have to attract Americans. My guess is that the wages they are paying are so low that no American could take them and still make a living.

[Dan Evans]

Amish and Hutterites do the kind of labor that illegals do. The trouble is, there isn't enough of them. But there will be in a few generations. (They have up to nine kids per family). Amish have increased their population by about thirty times in the last century so anyone who thinks we need to import foreign labor should consider the people we have right here.

[bayourod]

" ...said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington think tank. Without immigration, wages and working conditions would improve, giving U.S. workers incentives to take jobs"...

So CIS admits that unemployed workers presently don't have incentives to take jobs. Any adult male who doesn't already have an incentive to get a job won't benefit from kicking out foreign laborers.

[bayourod]

"If they are legal immigrants, then there is no problem here. "

Enact Bush's guest laborer proposal and they will all be legal and no one will have any problem.

[cubram]

I think he is saying that US workers don't have incentives to take low paying jobs with poor working conditions. How ungrateful are we (is the sarcasm suitably apparent)?

[brytlea]

I agree, but are you willing to pay $15 for a crab coctail or po'boy?
I'm willing to forego crab coctail if I cannot afford it, rather than foist the other costs of these workers on people. I'm just not selfish enough to say that the American taxpayer should subsidize my lifestyle (ie, being able to afford cheap crab or whatever).
susie

[bayourod]

So he's saying that there are eleven million people out there who will sit on their butts instead of mowing yards for $10 an hour, but they will enthusiastically mow yards for $20 an hour?Or maybe they would just love to pick melons, paint water towers and tar roofs for $20 an hour.

[brytlea]

Heck, I might mow yards for 20$ per hour!
susie

[Spiff]

Enact Bush's guest laborer proposal and they will all be legal and no one will have any problem.

Enact my guest bank customer proposal and then all bank robbers will be legal and no one will have any problem.

[Spiff]

Spiff (Unless we get over 40% of the Felon vote in 2008, President Hillary will take all your guns away.)

[bayourod]

Do you realize that you are saying that all Hispanics are felons? It's those type of gratuitous insults that will alienate the Hispanic vote.

Some Hispanic families have been here since before the revolutionary war and have shed their blood for your right to insult them in such a childish manner.

I went to the local veterans' cemetery this weekend. There are quite a few headstones in the new KIA section with Hispanic names. They weren't felons they were heroes and I doubt if their families would appreciate you saying that they were felons.

[blackie]

Legal Immigrants are fine!!

Protect our borders and coastlines from all foreign invaders!

Be Ever Vigilant!

Minutemen Patriots ~ Bump!

[Spiff]

Do you realize that you are saying that all Hispanics are felons? It's those type of gratuitous insults that will alienate the Hispanic vote. Some Hispanic families have been here since before the revolutionary war and have shed their blood for your right to insult them in such a childish manner. I went to the local veterans' cemetery this weekend. There are quite a few headstones in the new KIA section with Hispanic names. They weren't felons they were heroes and I doubt if their families would appreciate you saying that they were felons.

I never said that all Hispanics were felons. You're a little dense, aren't you...

What I did do was point out the absurdity of your claim by making a similarly absurd claim. By your posts, comments, and tag line you claim and imply that we need to pander to so-called "hispanics" by excusing the crimes of illegal aliens and rewarding those illegal aliends with jobs, benefits, and citizenship. So, I crafted a tagline which implied that we need to pander to felons to get their votes.

[4.1O dana super trac pak]

Back to the Hispanic names on the headstones at the military cemetery tact, eh?

Maybe you should go back to your 'sock puppet' line.